Master of Arts (MA) in STEM Education

The MA in STEM Education program is a Master’s degree program for students who wish to advance their professional knowledge and skills in STEM Education. The program is to prepare STEM educators and leaders to more effectively teach, engage, and inspire a diverse population of students in the STEM fields. Through an advanced course of study, this program provides candidates with specialized experiences that will enhance their knowledge, skills and dispositions that prepare them to become expert STEM educators and leaders who will advance STEM education, either in discipline-specific or integrated settings, in K-12 schools and other informal contexts. With an emphasis on interdisciplinary perspectives, the goal of the program is to prepare STEM educators and leaders who will be able to prepare all students to become active and informed citizens in an ever more technological and complex world; and to build the educational foundation for future STEM-related careers through engaging them in authentic inquiry, real world problem-solving, critical and creative thinking, productive collaboration and effective communication.

The program curriculum focuses on integrating mathematics, science, technology, and engineering concepts across disciplines through facilitating a broader understanding of the interdisciplinary nature of STEM, a deeper discipline-specific pedagogical content knowledge, equitable teaching strategies, and integrative approaches for the teaching and learning of STEM content. The program curriculum includes research in STEM Education, assessment, foundations in STEM Education, technology and engineering in STEM Education, advanced teaching methods in STEM Education and culminating experience. These courses are to enhance teachers’ knowledge and practice in STEM education through student-centered, integrated teaching approaches, hands-on experiences, collaborations and reflections, with a focus on Common Core State Standards for Mathematics and the Next Generation Science Standards. 

The audience of the program will be primarily single subject and multiple subject credential students to further their knowledge and practice in STEM Education. This program will also offer valuable knowledge and skills in teaching STEM to K-12 CTE (Career and Technical Education) teachers, special education teachers and informal STEM educators. Students in the MA program will be supported to add foundational level mathematics, foundational level science, mathematics, subject-specific science, and computer science teaching authorizations.